Help with Humidity

does any one have any experience with 'evaporative-pad humidifiers'?
My indoor 10x12 plant room hoovers at 45 % even with grid bottom trays and daily misting. Night temps 58 and day time temps low 70s with florescents and fans. Are these machines worth the expense or do you have any other ideas. I have new wooden floors and fresh wall paint so cool/warm mist humidifiers are a neg
thanks

:clap: Welcome Orchidnut57!
I use to have evaporative pad type humidifiers, I just recently bought ultrasonic cool mist. Why are cool mist a neg?
I found the evaporative pad to be higher maintanence, the cost of the filters/pads are extra, then cleaning them (weekly is recommended) & they're noisy & drafty. The good is, the tanks are usually bigger, which means you don't have to refill as often.
I bought the first ultrasonic, went back & bought a 2nd one the next day for the bedroom! I have a GH so humidity in there is no problem, when plants are in bloom I have a display area in the house & there is where the lower humidity for us as well as plants was a problem. Only if the mist was directly on the plants did any moisture accumulate. If you have good air circulation there should be no problem. It's as quiet as a mouse, there are no pads/filters to maintain. Your water quality will have an effect on the need for adding water additives & cleaning on either type
How high do you want the humidity to be? Chances are anything over 50%, in time, is going to have an effect on paint & wood floors.

Humidity will almost invariably have negative effects on your home. Doesn't matter if it comes from an evap pad, warm mist, or cool mist. Humidity is humidity. 45-55% humidity in the house is actually pretty good especially in winter. Sometimes, instead of fight with it, you just have to figure out what grows best with what you can provide. If you have some mounted stuff or whatever, design a special area for them.

I'd also recommend some sort of filter for that room- either a HEPA filter or an ionic filter to reduce the mold and mildew in the air. This will help keep you and your house healthier.

Dont worry about paint and wooden floors, the plants are more improtant!

We use the consol type evaporative pad humidifiers in our 8X10 ft test rooms at work.

We upgraded over the course of time from multiple small systems you can get at a drugstore to the bigger roll around units we got from WW Grainger (I've seen them for a bit more $ at Home Depot or Lowes).


We push for 70% or greater in our test rooms for stability of temperature reasons.

As Ernie said, at those high humidity levels you will grow mold/algae where you don't generally want it. We repainted using mold inhibiting paints. Plastic coated wire shelving, tile on concrete flooring. The drop ceiling tiles don't seem to be having any problems.

Furniture fabric and carpeting would not do well.

I think within the last year our very own Wendy in Canada authored an article in Orchids (or was it OD?) about the environmentals in basement setup.

Ernie grows extensively indoors and has detailed his setup when living in Chicago.

Not sure how NYEric handles it. His appartment has plants all over. He even leaves his plants on the stove in his appartment.oke:oke:

Fog nozzles mounted up high. Use an intermittent timer so they come on for a short burst at given intervals. Like on for 20 seconds every 5 minutes as an example.
You can adjust the times so that no water hits the floor if you want or so that the foliage as a light mist or so that it is like in a cloud forest.

This method works great in a plant room.

I don't grow inside anymore, but I have used several techniques outdoors to maintain very high humidity levels whilst cooling the root zone. I use carpet padding under the plants. That simple. It raises the humidity where it is needed, sometimes as much as 30-50%. It provides evaporative cooling, especially with good air movement. And it is cheap.

Rick said:

Not sure how NYEric handles it. His appartment has plants all over. He even leaves his plants on the stove in his appartment.oke:oke:

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I have a live in who sprays the plants once or twice a day!

thanks to all for your time on my question.
I will weigh all suggestions and let you all know what I have decided
You guys are the best!

definitely don't get an old-style impact humidifier (one that has fins dipping into water; spinning makes large mist droplets); a few years ago I tried one because it was free and the moisture in winter caused a great deal of mildew in the cooler rooms/ceilings and the kitchen where the ceiling insulation was compacted above and very cool... ick!

completely enclosing your growing spot with plastic (fans inside for air movement) can help a great deal with allowing the humidity to be higher without having as much negative impact on things outside

I use a pad-type Bionaire humidifier that must be 10 or 15 years old; luckily I can still pick up filters for it. It is in the spare bedroom that I grow my orchids in. The best it does is 40 - 50% humidity, but hey, that's better than the alternative...

Interestingly, I don't see these types of humidifiers for sale here any more. All the stores seem to carry is those cool or warm "mist" humidifiers....

Pads and warm-mist humidifiers have the advantage of putting only water into the air. Nozzles, as well as the impact-, centrifugal-, and ultrasonic types of humidifiers atomize the water, rather than directly evaporate it, thereby introducing all of the dissolved minerals into the air as well, which will result in the deposition of a fine, white mineral dust on everything.

That's why I mist with RO in the greenhouse, avoiding that.

Yoyo_Jo said:

I use a pad-type Bionaire humidifier that must be 10 or 15 years old; luckily I can still pick up filters for it. It is in the spare bedroom that I grow my orchids in. The best it does is 40 - 50% humidity, but hey, that's better than the alternative...

Interestingly, I don't see these types of humidifiers for sale here any more. All the stores seem to carry is those cool or warm "mist" humidifiers....

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Are the stores out of stock? Of course, the model you bought many years ago should not be available. But I saw pads system humidifier a few weeks ago.

http://www.canadiantire.ca/AST/brow...B11-gal.%2BConsole%2BHumidifier.jsp?locale=en

Brian Monk said:

I don't grow inside anymore, but I have used several techniques outdoors to maintain very high humidity levels whilst cooling the root zone. I use carpet padding under the plants. That simple. It raises the humidity where it is needed, sometimes as much as 30-50%. It provides evaporative cooling, especially with good air movement. And it is cheap.

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Brian
Tell me more about the carpet idea...what do you do about the mold and smell?

you can use green astroturf, and put some physan or something in the water to keep the bacteria down

Thanks I will give this a try!

Brian Monk said:

I use carpet padding under the plants. That simple. It raises the humidity where it is needed, sometimes as much as 30-50%. It provides evaporative cooling, especially with good air movement. And it is cheap.

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There was a short bit about using carpet padding as a stunt double for sphag moss. Someone in our 'hood redid their carpet and it was all I could do to leave it at the curb. And my wife wouldn't let me scavenge any, it is sorta gross, someone's grubby old carpet and all. Will watch for discards from a new install. I think Brian's idea is good, as is the astro turf one. Go for the classic fix- get more plants and cluster them to create a local area of humidity at the leaf "canopy".

Ernie
I did take your advice and purchased the best air purifier/ionizer I could afford. It has helped the air quality and everyone plants, cats, and humans are alot happier
Thanks for that idea